Those From Down Below
by Harlequin de Rustre
Summary: The dude with da brick makes a comeback. Wait, what? He's dead? He's where? What's going on! WARNING!: Grit and phantasmagoria! Poetic license abuse!


Moar randomness from the Jester, himself. I swear, I must be a genius when it comes to strange-ass concepts.

This is what I get for watching Bleach amvs and playing Condemned 2 within 10 minutes of either activity. Now suffer as I deliver another heaping, steaming turd for all you slashies and crackpots.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or Condemned 2: Bloodshot. I don't profit from this. Tite Kubo has Bleach, Sega has Condemned 2: Bloodshot.

Now, come to think of it, this is my first _real_ crossover in a while. ES doesn't count, cuz it's the same universe and all that shit…

Well… "Enjoy"

**~I~**

Cough. Snort. Spit.

A near corpulent hand rose and wipes the residual "saliva" from the corner of an equally deathly mouth. The owner of hand and mouth groans, as his whole body is hurting like a royal bitch. He pushes himself up from the craggy asphalt, shaking his throbbing- no, **banging** – head, trying to no avail to clear some of the pain-induced fog from his mind.

The pale man cracks open his baleful grey eyes and stares. What is he-

He rubs his eyes. Same-

He's looking at himself. No, not like a reflection. Like- like a twin. Like he's-

Like he is looking at his body and he's a…

He feels dizzy and promptly collapses.

Feels like solid ground, not a body. Hallucination? It is certainly possible that his use of his Voice is finally taking its toll, however infrequently he used it; if he had a chance to use a fist, a brick, a pipe- he'd take it. But it must be that all good things must come to an end. Even sanity, it seems.

He picks himself up again, ignoring "him" and walks into the light of the setting sun. He preferred the moon a good bit to the sun, but a bit of the old ultraviolet wouldn't hurt him…

He walks a few steps until he realizes that there is something thumping against his chest. He looks down and sees a thick chain jutting out from his chest. He holds it in his hands as he looks at where it's attached.

It simply went through his jacket, and everything else, as if his clothes aren't even there. It definitely wasn't there before. The problem was, it didn't hurt. It didn't feel like it had been driven into his chest, even though it was there.

He didn't see any blood, any evidence of drilling or piercing or even post surgery aches and pains. It's just… there. In his chest. Poking out as clear as day.

He presses his thumb against the base. It felt solid, every bit as real as the rest of him. Through it, he could feel the vibrations of his breathing, of his heartbeat.

Whatever it was, it had to come out. So he pulled it.

It hurt. It **really** hurt. Like an axe in the face type hurt.

But he ignores this, and pulls harder. The pain rose like a raging tide in winter, nearly blinding him. His hands began to burn. Or was it the chain?...

He gasps, and pulls the hardest he can. From that came the dreadful shock.

Like a gruesome wound, his mind festers and pounds, his vision warping as his emotions explode into a delirious riot of howling sorrow.

He releases the chain, bringing his hands up to hold his head, falling to his knees in the process.

It's like his dad was dying all over again. It feels like it. It seems like that. It's like it was right back then, with Dad bleeding out on the pavement, his son screaming and whimpering as he tries to pinch together the gaping hole.

It's like his mom was raping him on that cold, dark morning. The helplessness. The terror. What's happening. He's bleeding. He's in pain. She's biting his neck, saying that she loves him more than Dad. Why?

He's standing there as the other guys in his group block him off from his dog as their boss breaks its legs with his boot and proceeds to slit its throat. It's only two months old, and it's wailing for him. He can see its bones already. WHY?

He's falling from the fourth story of the halfway house. Jamie said she wanted to talk to him about something special up there in the bathroom. All he saw was mirror with the ugly buzzcut bastard from down the block in it before he was flying out the window. He's gonna fall on the metal fence for sure. He tries to prepare for the pain, but he's too scared to get a grip. WHY?

A thousand more anguishes pass through him as he begins to do something he hasn't done in many years. His eyes ache as they spill out tears and he yells at the concrete as he pushes against it as he tries to let it go away. This hurts. Why….

He shakily gets up. Once again, he looks down at the chain on his chest. It didn't seem like a simple metal object anymore, but something a tad more sinister… and much more personal…

He flexes his hands and picks up the slack end of the chain to take a look at it. He admired the luster of it, even after the hell he was dumped in, noting how it looked bluish in one light and almost red in another. Then he notices the end of the chain.

It's some rather interesting shape, quite like-

He touches his lip, then feels around the inside of his mouth. He looks at his chain, then back to the alley. He runs back to where his body lay.

He looks at "his" mouth. The piercings of The Voice are gone. As the piercings are most definitely permanent, and so anything less than totally fucking up somebody, mad surgeon style, wouldn't get them out. Seeing as the face and so on are totally recognizable and intact, that meant…

… that the piece right here was…

It.

"Yes."

He whips around to face a scraggly old man, one who had a curved bit of dirty glass badly wrapped onto a pipe like some crappy kind of spear.

"Yes 'it' is," said the dirty old man, grinning, his massively oversized hood over his balding head adding to the creepiness of the whole image. "Do you want it back in you? I bet you do…"

The other man steps back, away from the intruder. He doesn't reply.

"Ah, good boy; your only voice is _The_ Voice. Do you want me to do it for you or… yes you do." The disturbing man leers knowingly, partly caring and partly wolfish. "Purity of cause can be a beautiful thing. It's a shame that your brothers to dedicate as equally to your leader like you have. It would make my job less straightforward, and I love a good convolution. Simple, monotonous reaping gets so… so~… what's the word?..."

The old man's finger strikes out at the empty space, circling and wandering, as if physically searching for the answer to his vocal conundrum. After a passing moment, it drops in abrupt finality. "Awkward? Doesn't feel quite right in my mouth, but I suppose it'll do… Well, boyo, you want your Voice back and I want some of the old interactive Technicolor. Pick up your corpse, brother."

The other stares at the grizzled freak.

"Just concentrate on picking up your shell. I've been told I'm ugly by more than half my clients, so I'd rather you keep as quiet as your are, because I want to like you, boyo."

The obviously younger of the two in the alley stoops down to pick up "him", totally ignoring everything, including the dirty great train that swoops by near him.

Not even straining, he brings "himself' up, feeling rather sad that this was what had happened to him.

"Leaving your body or meeting yourself will probably feel like this for the rest of your existence. Quite a noble and healthy reaction, if I do say so. Never become detached from that feeling, little boy, or you will not stay a friend of mine." The old man wags a bony finger at him whilst ending his statement.

"Now…" The old man crouches for a second, then straightens up, and then starts what looks to be a routine for limbering up. "I'm going to send you to a place outside of my residential jurisdiction, what with it being a generically God-less region and all that…" He takes his pole in both hands and starts stretching with that. "Those over there need a serious wakeup call and I want you to keep the newest generation from turning into yet another consortium of dullards and outsized, wrinkly infants. You might even save the second generation. Who knows? I don't. Well, I _do_, but there's no point in that, is there? A little knowledge is dangerous, but knowing more makes is less so. Understand this, boy: the more you know, the less chance you'll get your barmy arse kicked. Now hold still-"

The old man ends his exercise and adjusts his grip, making as if he were to swing a bat or- "And get ready to—"

-a scy- "Fly!"

The other had not chance to dodge, though he certainly tried. He was able to make an inch backwards as the cool edge of the strange weapon rushed up to his face.

It didn't cut him. In fact, it was more of a push. Push? Impossible. That glass looked like a sharp sonofabitch. Regardless, it pushed him, body and soul and all, through brick and stone and wire and air, and he flew.

All reality blinks into a nonsense for an instant, and then it is back. He flies, but he doesn't feel right. He feels like he's missing. He knows he has "him", but what is he missing.

Name, name name NAME.

What is his-

From the rush came the old man's voice, as if just by his ear and no howling wind to drown him out. "Such an interesting one. Your birthname wasn't your true name, you know. Usually, it is. But it didn't fit you. Never did. So, who are you, Inferi?"

And just like that, everything comes back. The good, the bad,… the weird.

Even the days he thought he never lived return. Everything he ever saw he saw in a rich technicolor, all that he should have, but didn't on all those days, the true blue supernatural. The ghost in the widow's window, the red eyed dog in the antique mirror, the owl that kept him safe at night in the orphanage, the flying stairs, and more. A door is opened in his perception, and, as if with a new glasses, he sees more in his life.

Now he sees more. More…

Well, it's something new, let's enjoy it.

Inferi closes his eyes, and he falls asleep as the hundreds of miles speed by.

The following morning, there were reports of a birdlike object knocking out powerlines all along a straight course across America, starting from Trenton and seemingly ending in San Francisco…

**~I~**

This is far, far away from being a complete piece.

This is definitely going to be continued, and I'll prolly do it within three months, if not three weeks or three days…

Before anyone has a fangasm, I have absolutely no fucking idea where to go with the pairings, and don't even start, alright? I might not even do them, but IF I do them, I'll guarantee it won't be Orihime or Kukaku. "Hime" is a broken Mary Sure and Kukaku is just… annoying, to say the least…

NO YAOI WHATSOEVER. YOU HEAR ME?

On the offside, we have some rather irksome issues:

I am going through a creative slump. That's right. Slump. Meaning a drought of ideas. I hope it'll drop off, but I'm not crossing my fingers.

Before I even consider updating this fic, I must attend to my labor of love, the Pariah Saga. Which means I must update THAT before this. So sit tight, kiddies…


End file.
